Friday, April 23, 2010

Charlie Crist Under Investigation by the FBI

Apparently the FBI and IRS are interested in the campaign affairs of current Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

Crist, who is in the battle of his political life, is currently running against conservative republican Marco Rubio for the US senate seat vacated by former senator Mel Martinez.

According to recent reports, the FBI AND the IRS are interested in finding out if Crist is guilty of co-mingling state GOP funds with personal expenditures.

The Hill Blog reports:
Federal investigators are probing the Senate campaign of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to see if it improperly co-mingled state GOP funds with personal expenditures, according to a report Thursday.

The FBI, IRS and U.S. Attorney's office have opened a preliminary investigation into the Republican Party of Florida to see if credit cards it issued to staffers and officials were used for improper personal expenses.

The Hills story is just the latest in the seemingly inivisble thread of possible wrongdoing by Charlie Crist and his hand picked Chairman Jim Greer. (Greer was forced to resign).

Earlier this month the Saint Pete Times reported:
Feds asking about Charlie Crist ties to Fla. GOP spending

"They had Jim Greer's travel expense records and wanted me to react to some of the issues surrounding that debacle. ... There wasn't one single question asked about Marco Rubio. There were a lot of questions asked about Jim Greer, (former party executive director) Delmar Johnson, Victory Strategies (the Johnson/Greer company paid by the party) and the (Greer) 527,'' said Hoffman, who recently asked Charlie Crist to refund his contributions and who expects to help Rubio. "Definitely they asked about the relationship between the Crist campaign and the party, relative to the co-mingling of funds. ... I believe they're after any federal election law violations, tax avoidance issues, and criminal fraud."

With all of the chicanery going on in the Crist administration it is shocking to me that the "Media" are focusing so much on the Marco Rubio campaign. Rubio is a private citizen. Charlie Crist is a sitting Governor of one of the largest states.

Yet stories reported as long ago (in politcal time) as March 25th about Crist's dubious spending are ignored.

From WSVN.com

On Wednesday, the Crist campaign acknowledged, for instance, that ousted former state party chairman Jim Greer was the first person to reach out to the woman Crist hired as his campaign communications director. The party charged more than $1,000 on the state GOP's credit card to fly Andrea Saul down to a Crist campaign meeting in Orlando in October.


"The reason Marco Rubio is the next United States senator is because Jim Greer turned the Republican Party of Florida into the Republican Party of Charlie Crist," said Pinellas Republican state committeeman Tony DiMatteo, recounting the grass roots outcry when Greer tried to invoke an arcane party rule to formally endorse Crist.
The Crist campaign also reported nearly $17,000 in "reimbursement" to the state party's credit card, which three experts called a potential violation of federal campaign finance law. State parties are not allowed to contribute, advance or loan a federal candidate more than $5,000 in a primary.
Even if the Crist campaign promptly paid off the party's credit card charge "the Federal Election Commission would likely find that an advance in excess of $5,000 resulted in an excessive contribution," said Washington lawyer Chris Gober, a former general counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Marco Rubio had 16K in personal expenses. He paid for his personal expenses directly to American Express at the time he received his statements.

This just aint right! Crist deserves scrutiny and he is getting a pass.

1 comment:

  1. I used to do a lot of motorsports racing. The most successful drivers in racing will always tell you, "Run your own race". I am passing this wisdom on to you...stop focusing on Chuckles or it will come back on you at the polls.

    http://scottfactor.com

    ReplyDelete